Rain Barrel & More From Saturday

I have to report about our new rain barrel.  Scott met a guy at the Durham Farmer's Market that was making and selling rain barrels a little cheaper than Whole Foods.  They are still pricey, so we considered this one of Scott's birthday presents.  He really has been wanting an additional one.  Once the first barrel fills up, it sends the water that is overflowing threw the tube to the second one.  You would be amazed at how much pours out of our gutter from our roof.   

Thankfully, last night, we had a major rain.  Both barrels are completely full.  :)  We use this water to water our garden and our other outside plants & bushes.  It is a neat way to conserve.

Saturday's harvest

Kalen, Brady & Julian

This was our Lasagna Meal

Meal Plan

This is our dinner menu for the coming week:

Monday

Spaghetti and Lasagna leftovers 

with salad and bread

(yes, of course, we eat leftovers!)

Tuesday

Homemade Pizza

with homegrown veggies & "cheesy" sauce

Wednesday

Sloppy Joes made from tempeh 

with french fries, tater tots

and lima beans

Thursday

Cabbage, Quinoa, Baked Beans and Green Beans

with Zucchini Bread

Friday

Baked Potatoes & Broccoli

My Main Man

Happy Birthday to my adorable husband, Scott!  He is 34 years young.  Hope he doesn't mind I just threw out his age to all of you.  :)  As a special tribute to this cute guy.  I am listing 34 notable things about Scott.

He is . . .

(in no particular order)

1.  gracious

2.  a father

3.  health conscious 

4.  a family guy

5.  loving

6.  affectionate

7.  supportive

8.  analytical

9.  honest

10.  well read

11.  funny

12.  loved

13.  creative

14.  wise

15.  introverted

16.  a good eater:)

17.  silly

18.  witty

19.  sometimes critical (in a good way)

20.  super good at teaching

21.  energetic

22.  intelligent

23.  kind of earthy

24.  a movie watcher

25.  a dancer:)

26.  an amazing guitar player

27.  a visionary

28.  a book worm

29.  a gardener

30.  a man of style

31.  vegan

32.  crazy about basketball

33.  totally into soccer

34.  and a devoted & faithful husband!

Scott~  we love you!  Happy Birthday to wonderful YOU!!!

Here Lately (warning: long post)

This week we stayed home quite a bit. It was good at times, whiny at other moments. It is so hot outside in Durham in the daytime. We have to be creative inside and try not to drive one another crazy. For some reason, dress up was a big hit several days in a row.

The blackberry picking was wonderful on Tuesday. I have done a lot with those berries. We had pancakes with them, made jam, ate them alone, and made a cobbler with them. $20 for 20 lbs of berries, not bad.

Wednesday we went to the museum. Our family never gets tired of that place. It was super crowded with summer camps and kids out of school. We met our friends there and had a great time. One of our favorite people that works there, Don, took out the corn snake for the kids to touch. That is always a thrill.

The Tofu Quiche I made that night was so yummy. I had never made a vegan quiche before. I will try to post the recipe. I do have a picture of it. In the same cookbook there was a recipe for the crust. The crust was super easy and turned out great.

I have been loving my clothes line. It is great exercise taking the clothes down from the deck and bending over and such, the kids help sometimes, and it gets me out in the sunshine. I also enjoy the fact that I have been folding them straight off the line. This makes the folding a little more enjoyable for me. I use to just sit my laundry baskets with mounds of clothes in my room till I could get to folding them. Usually I don't get to them until after the kids go to bed. That is when I am tired and really just want to relax.

Our garden is doing well. All our plants are green and growing. We have harvested a small amount of produce this week. I am posting a picture of our first two yellow squash. We have been picking yellow tomatoes and I picked our first green bean yesterday. I believe we'll pick our first zucchini today. Mmm . . . do I sense the need for some yummy zucchini bread. Jen just posted a recipe for a sweet zucchini bread the other day. It is vegan. Check it out.

Again, my meal plan has been a huge help to this little mama. It is really a stress reliever to know what is next. Sure, it is work preparing these meals. I love to cook, so this takes out the anxiety that might arise from lack of creativity or whatnot. Adjusting the plan is always allowed of course. Last night we were going to have brownies, because Scott's folks were staying over. Instead, we decided to use our blackberries and make a cobbler. Brownies . . . Blackberry Cobbler, you can't lose. Earlier today, Scott asks, "Why don't we go out to Weaver Street tonight for supper?" Wanting to stick to my schedule, I hesitated. Then, I was like, are you crazy, Anna??? He wants to go out to eat!! What a treat! It actually is his birthday weekend. It will be a special time, I am sure. We'll save the veggie burger meal for lunch tomorrow or something. It all works out.

This is a picture of Maddie after we took her hair out of curlers a week or so ago.  I never showed the finished product.

Canning with "K"

Kalen and I made some homemade blackberry jam today. It was quite fun. As I began getting all the stuff out this morning, he just came up and got his apron on. He was ready for business. He stuck right with me during the entire process.  Maddie and Jules were really into their Playmobil play and Brady was taking a nap.  

Earlier this morning we tried out our blackberries on some pancakes.  It was very tasty.  The blackberries are so big.  :)

Blackberries

We have had a whirl of a day here. My favorite part was taking the kids out to Lyon's Farm again. Instead of strawberries, we were able to pick blackberries this time. The bushes were gorgeous, all green and so fruitful. They looked like a vineyard from a far. The kids and I had to walk a bit to get to them, but that was half the fun.

We took our containers out there and just started picking. The berries are so beautiful. We picked quite a bit and stumbled upon several creatures and nature beauties along the way. We found a little orange toad, a bird's nest with eggs, a butterfly and spied a heron across a pond.

Later we went to a near by pond and found several toads. We came home with ten toads! We are watching them closely and will keep them only for a short while. What a wonderful science lesson and overall experience!

Quote from Sojourners

It is useless to dream of reforming the socioeconomic structure...as long as there is not a correspondingly deep change in our inner selves.

- Dom Helder Camara
Brazilian Catholic archbishop

Another Week of Food

I won't do this every week, but I am enjoying posting my meal plan.  Last week, I stuck right to my plan and we ate well.  

Here is our menu for this coming week's dinners:

Monday

Veggie Soup with Garlic Breadsticks

Tuesday

Tofu Quiche with

Orzo & Broccoli 

Wednesday

Vegetable Stir-fry with Basmati Rice and Thai Peanut Sauce

Thursday

Black-Eyed Peas, Cabbage, Fresh Green Beans 

Rice with Almonds

Cornbread

Maple & Flax Brownies

Friday

Veggie Burgers, Tofu Dogs, Fries/Tater Tots, 

Lima Beans & Baked Beans

Saturday

Tofu Lasagna with Bread

Sunday

(Scott's Birthday)

Upon Request: Harvest Bowl  

(Rice, Black Beans, Sweet Potatoes, Tofu, Spinach, Mushrooms)

Carrot Cake

Meals Served at Annie's Diner

I thought I would give you a glimpse of what came out of our vegan kitchen this week.  These are just some of the foods we ate.  The meal plan worked wonderfully.  I am already working on next week's plan.  

This was the non-kiddy version of Pizza Night

I tried a new recipe for granola bars that I found recently at a friend's house.  They were thick and great!

Here was one of our breakfasts this week.  These are Poor Boy Pancakes (toast, peanut butter, peaches and syrup).  I got this idea in college from one of my roommates (it was you, Em, right?).  So good!

This was our Taco meal.  

One day this past week, the kids and I had smoothies and peanut butter crackers.  We do this a lot.  The smoothie consisted of Apple Juice, frozen strawberries, mangos and blueberries, a spoonful of homemade strawberry jelly, and Vanilla Soymilk.

 

This was our Baked Chili with Cornbread Topping.  I had never tried it.  My mother-in-law had served it to us before and I loved it.  I love cornbread.  It is a southern thing and I love it!  We had our friend, Griff, over the night I fixed it and we had plenty.    Griff referred to it as Tamale Pie.  That sounds better.

This is our Sweet Potato Fajita meal.  I got this recipe from my friend, Mandy.  It is a healthy meal.  The salsa on top consists of green peppers, pears and onions.  Inside there is just vegan cream cheese, sweet potato wedges and black beans.  Simple really.  

Here's my little kitchen helper.  Isn't he such a cutie?  I am thinking maybe a chef at a five star vegan restaurant in New York one day.  Dream big, right?

I have been trying to bake bread more often.  This is one kind that I attempted this week.  It is a Banana-Muesli Whole Wheat Bread.  It was hearty and good.  We ate it this morning with Steel Cut Oats.  

My Clotheslines

For years I have wanted my own clothesline to dry our clothes on. For this reason or that, we just hadn't gotten to it. Last night, Scott and our friend, Griff, worked on it for me.  They actually put up three lines that are connected to our fence.

Drying our clothes out on the line is one step closer to living more simply and living out what we believe. Besides the global-warming and cost-saving aspects of clotheslines, hanging out clothes requires exercise and time outside. I think we all would agree that these things are missing from many American's lives. So much of what we do and/or experience is so automated.

I have read that a clothesline makes your clothes last longer and smell better. We'll see. We'll also see how our lovely squirrels enjoy our line, as it is right where they like to climb over the fence and eat our birdseed. I figure people have been doing this for so long, whatever problems that should arise are totally tolerable.

Madelyn and I just went and took everything off our line.  What a joy that was!  They do smell wonderfully and it didn't take long at all.  

Need a Summer Read?

I am reading a book by Shane Claiborne entitled The Irresistible Revolution.  It is hard for me to describe in a few words what this book is about.  Claiborne is an activist, writer, and speaker.  He writes with passion as he conveys his sincere love for Jesus.  He challenges his readers to live out an authentic Christian faith.  His words are poetic and life changing.  Be warned if you dare pick it up to read.  This is not your typical Christian read.  As read from the back description of the book, "This book will comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable, and invite believers to change the world with Christ's radical love."

Claiborne's book has stirred up quite a bit within me.  His zeal is quite contagious.  Author Brian McLaren says this, "Read this book and let it make you uncomfortable, as it did me.  We need this kind of discomfort more than we know."  I agree totally.  Claiborne tells story after story of simply living in a radical way that is basically surrendering to Christ.  Author Tony Campolo says this of Claiborne's book, "Shane expresses the kind of authentic Christianity that most of us are trying to avoid because the cost is too great." 

Here is a bit from a chapter entitled Jesus is for losers:

When we look through the eyes of Jesus, we see new things in people.  In the murderers, we see our own hatred.  In the addicts, we see our own addictions.  In the saints, we catch glimpses of our own holiness.  We can see our own brokenness, our own violence, our own ability to destroy, and we can see our own sacredness, our own capacity to love and forgive.  When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.  

Later Claiborne writes:

We are made of the same dust.  We cry the same tears.  No one is beyond redemption.  And we are free to imagine a revolution that sets both the oppressed and the oppressors free.  

Creative Father's Day Cards

I have used Ed Emberley's book several times to make cards.  You make thumbprints into people or things.  The kids have tried it a time or two.  It is super cute.

I am not accustomed to buying Hallmark cards anymore.  I think creating cards can be personal and super inexpensive.  I do love getting any kind of card; Hallmark, DaySpring, homemade or whatever. I am a lover of words.  Personally, I just find it fun and cheap to make my own cards.  They may not be the neatest or most perfect things, but they are from the heart.  

Lately, I have been cutting out words and/or pictures from magazines to make cards. I did this for a Father's Day card for Scott. I have tons of magazines. It is a neat way to reuse them.

Meal Plan

I have a blogging friend named Kristen.  I know her through, my friend and college roommate, Mandy.  Kristen is someone who easily has the ability to encourage and inspire.  She has been posting meal plans recently.  I have been encouraged to do so myself.  

I, like Kristen, make most of the meals we eat here at home.  If and when the Morrison family goes out to eat, it is a big occasion.  Like today, we went out for lunch, after church, for Father's Day.  I enjoy preparing our food.  Making a meal plan for the week is very helpful.  Not only does it ease my mind going into my days, knowing what I will be cooking that night.  I also am able to make a more precise list of items needed from the store.  If I have a list, I am not as likely to go overboard with our spending.  

Let me say that having a list of the meals we will be having for supper for the week also helps me to be more efficent in prepping those meals.  So often, I wait until crunch time.  You know what time I am talking about, homemakers, the 5 o'clock hour.  If I prep a meal, say at rest time around 2pm, I will be able to ease into that cooking phase.  If I am not rushed and well prepped, I am more likely to involve the kids and not send them away for fear of delay.  

This afternoon I decided to rummage through my, very messy, recipe box.  I pulled out several dishes and additional things that I wanted to prepare this week.  I wrote a list of the meals that I wanted to fix.  I then took inventory of what we had in our refrigerator and pantry.  I jotted down a list of items that we were out of and items/ingredients we needed for the dishes I hoped to make.  I took my littlest two,  Kalen and Brayden, and we were off to Whole Foods.

Now, if I post these meals, I guess I will be more likely to follow through.  I'm excited!

Here is what the Morrison's will be having this week for supper:

Monday

Homemade Pizza-  homemade crust, pizza sauce, zucchini, onions, mushroom, tofu,broccoli and our special homemade cheese-like sauce  

we make two pizzas~ the kiddy pizza is more simple, of course

Tuesday

Mashed Potatoes, Cabbage, Fresh Green Beans, Black-eyed Peas & Fresh Bread

Wednesday

Tacos~ hard shelled tacos with refried beans, white rice, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, lettuce and avocado

Thursday

Baked Chili with Cornbread Biscuit Topping

Friday

Sweet Potato Fajitas with Chips & Salsa

Saturday

Veggie Burgers, Fries & Green Beans

Sunday

Spaghetti, Kale & Bread

Happy Father's Day, Scott